And Even Knowing That
by Alory Shannon
Summary: ...One wonders, if Flynn saw it all, why he didn’t actually *stop* Yuri from killing Cumore... a.k.a. "Flynn Pulls a Batman Begins." XD One-shot. NOT YAOI.


Almost the instant he received the news about what was happening in Mantaic, Flynn Scifo was ordering his troops to move out of Nordopolica. He pushed them hard, marching through the day and late into the night to get to the little desert town: if the reports he'd been given about what was going on there were at all true, then there wasn't a moment to lose. His men obeyed the order without complaint—they had already grown used to their captain's ways, and they were proud to serve under him. It had been tempting for Flynn ride on ahead and leave Sodia behind to keep things in order and keep them moving, but his better judgment had warned against it. Cumore had little love for him, low-born as he was, and Flynn knew that had he shown up alone, the other captain might very well have done away with him in an attempt to maintain control of Mantaic.

Thus it was well into the night when the Flynn Brigade reached its destination, and though he'd been in that saddle for hours, the instant he was out of it he was working right alongside his men to take control of the little town. They had the element of surprise on their side, and most of Cumore's men had given up without a fight, likely in part due to the fact that their captain was nowhere to be found--his room at the local inn was empty. Flynn frowned at finding Cumore's unsheathed sword in the hallway, and the fact that it had been kicked beneath, and was practically wedged under, a low table didn't help matters any; he was getting a bad feeling about this. Still frowning, he headed to the nearest doorway to search the sand for any telltale footprints. As expected, for the most part the tracks were a formless jumble, thanks in part to his own soldiers' efforts, but the blonde knight soon noticed a pair that broke off from the others. The sand was too fine, too loose for him to read the tracks very specifically, but it looked like two people had passed by fairly recently, though the wind had smoothed the marks over a bit, so likely before his own men had come through. One set was regular, a slow walk, while the other was exceedingly erratic--whoever it was had obviously been tripping over himself in his haste.

The low hum of voices caught his ears, and he quickened his pace just slightly, though he was still forced to move more slowly than he would have liked, since he didn't necessarily want the clank of his armour to give away his presence. He didn't know who—or what—was out here, after all, and it often paid to be cautious.

As it was, he arrived just in time to see Cumore tumble backwards into a sandpit as Yuri advanced on him menacingly.

Somehow, Flynn wasn't at all surprised to find that it was Yuri who was behind Cumore's disappearance. He wasn't surprised that he was simply standing there with his unsheathed (and thankfully unbloodied) sword held loosely at his side, impassively watching the noble below him die either. He was just surprised he hadn't realised it all sooner.

The blonde's first impulse was to rush forward, to save the other captain even if he was cruel and conceited and just about the worst sort of person, someone Flynn hadn't the slightest shred of respect for, but something made him pause. If he did attempt a rescue, he didn't doubt that he would be crossing blades with Yuri…and truth be told, a darker, deeply-buried part of him was entirely unwilling to do that just then. Not for someone like Cumore. He drew his sword to protect the innocent, which Cumore decidedly was not (a loophole to be sure, but laws were all about loopholes when it came down to it). What was more, he knew all too well that if he stepped in now, Cumore would do everything in his power to have Yuri killed, and as things were now, the law would help him, not hinder him in that endeavor.

The very thought made the blonde captain clench his jaw. Yuri's life for Cumore's? That was nowhere _near_ an even trade. Yuri was worth a hundred such men--no, more than that, far more than that, and not just because of their past together. Yet when it came down to it, didn't Cumore have as much of a right to a fair trial as anyone?

_Though with the way things are now, such a trial will be far from fair. Ragou proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, and such injustice cannot be allowed to stand!_

Conflicted, he closed his eyes, as if doing so could somehow make him blind to just how flawed the empire's justice system currently was, but that couldn't stop Yuri's voice from echoing through his memory with jarring clarity:

"_How would_ you _go about punishing the villains the law can't touch?"_

_I said then that I was still trying to figure that out…and I don't have your answer yet, Yuri._

…Or did he? His eyes snapped open, his gaze straying towards then settling on his best friend's turned back. The people the law couldn't touch could, feasibly, be punished by people acting outside of the law. That wasn't right either--it was still a crime, still murder, the behaviour of a common criminal, and it wasn't how things were supposed to work. But evil men going unpunished for their horrible crimes simply because of their social status…that wasn't how things were supposed to work, either.

Flynn's eyes narrowed, still focused on the figure standing there at the edge of the sandpit, watching his childhood best friend look meaningfully at the rope coiled beside him, then glance away just as pointedly. _…I see, Yuri…that's your answer for now, isn't it? Once again, you'll sacrifice yourself for others, knowing full well what the consequences will one day be...knowing that when I succeed in reaching my goal, when the laws of this empire are just and fair, there will be no place left for you, and that I will be forced to…_

He put that thought firmly aside. When the time for that came--_if_ the time for that came--he would deal with it then, but for now it had no place in his mind. He had more than enough to think about right now without that sort of thing clouding his judgment.

Still, he couldn't hold in a quiet, frustrated sigh.

…_And it has to be you, doesn't it, Yuri._

Operating outside the law, taking justice into his own hands and passing judgment on people like that wasn't something a captain of the Imperial Knights could do--he couldn't afford to, and he didn't really believe in that sort of justice anyway.

But he'd grown up on the streets in the Lower Quarter, he'd seen his share of meaningless death and cold-blooded murder, and he knew full well that sometimes that was just how the world worked. _And this death isn't meaningless at all…or undeserved._

Grimly, he watched and listened as Cumore's cries grew quiet and muffled and then stopped altogether; he closed his eyes again and bowed his head slightly, then set his jaw, eyes bright and piercing as he strode forward towards his best friend, his mind firmly made up.

He wouldn't--he couldn't--simply kill people like Ragou and Cumore. An Imperial Knight couldn't do that sort of thing and get away with it, and he had to keep climbing, had to gain a higher status if anything was ever going to change for good. Much as it might gall him, he couldn't protect everyone he wanted to protect just yet; he couldn't--wouldn't--mete out the type of brutal, immediate justice those thoroughly evil and unrepentant people deserved.

But he didn't have to save them from that type of justice, either.


End file.
